40th Anniversary Trip Day 6

40^th Anniversary Trip - Day 6 – Saturday – Lucca

One reason we chose this area is the proximity to Lucca, a town that dates back to Roman times and has intact medieval walls.  Lucca is also close to Pisa and if the weather were better, we’d have probably done a driving trip to both towns.  However, a combination of our experience navigating Italian roads on the trip up here, and the unpredictability of the weather has changed our plans so we’re just going to go into Lucca today.

It’s only a 25-minute drive (yeah, right!) but the ever-helpful Navigator in the hotel suggests we drive 10 minutes to the local station and take the train.  The Lucca station is right outside the walls, and this way we’ll avoid driving in the city.  Speaking of which, since Lucca is considerably smaller than Florence, we decide to check with Avis to see if we can return the car to Lucca.

We drive to the station and park the car, and head to the pharmacy across the road.  We’ve both run out of mouthwash.  2 problems – we don’t know the Italian for mouthwash and the clerk doesn’t speak English.  We’re both proud of my miming of rinsing the mouth and gargling and buy the bottle he recommends.  Later that evening I find we are now the proud owners of a bottle of sore throat medicine.  So much for my miming talent!

As we’re crossing the road, we see a large cat and, as is our wont, we call “kitten”.  He stops and looks at us, then walks away.  This is when we notice he has almost no tail.  A little research confirms that we’ve actually seen the rare (once thought extinct) Italian lynx! This is an amazing bonus for us.  Unfortunately, I’m not able to get a photo before he’s gone.  We decide he’s found a place to get food in this village.

We take the train and decide we’ll check with Avis first.  The office is close to the station but as usual the streets don’t do what the map says, so we spend a half hour finding the place.  As we do so it starts to rain.  Then we discover it closes early on Saturdays so it’s no use to us.  Undeterred, we head into the coffee/patisserie next door and enjoy a cappuccino and pastry until the rain stops.

You can walk or bike around Lucca’s walls but we do neither as there’s so much to do inside the walls.  We visit the cathedral, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours and built starting in 1063 under the supervision of Bishop Anselm who went on to become Pope Alexander II.   Vicky, as usual, explains the architecture (Gothic) and the significance of the paintings to me.  We also see the elaborate sarcophagus of Ilario di Caretto, commissioned by her rich husband after she died aged 26.  The poor woman has been moved around the church over the years. I claim the 217 steps to the top of the bell tower and get some good pictures and a sense of achievement.

Later we head down the street to the church of Saints Giovanni and Reparata which was the cathedral until San Martino (see above) was built.  This has been the subject of extensive archaeological work since the 1960’s and I’m able to go underground and see the tiled floor of a Roman domus (rich man’s house) the dating to Republican era (1^st and 2^nd Century BC), as well as evidence of several layers a church construction.  Although I don’t see them, they have apparently found domestic objects predating the founding of Roman Lucca, so this place has been inhabited for many centuries.  I’m in heaven!

One of Lucca’s other claims to fame it that it’s the birthplace of composer Giacomo Puccini, and since we’ll be attending one of his operas (Turandot) in Venice we try to find it.  As usual it takes time, but just as we’re about to give up, there it is.  Of course, you have to go somewhere else to get entrance tickets but someone who’s just done that points us in the right direction.

Puccini’s childhood home includes the piano on which he composed Turandot, original furniture and clothing, family photos and stories of the composer’s life.  He was a much-loved musical genius but, as we discover, his private life was somewhat scandalous.  He had an affair with a married woman, who he eventually married after her husband died.  Giacomo became the last of a long line of musicians in his family when his only son became an engineer.

Now it’s time to return to the station for the trip back.  The car is still where we left it, but there’s no sign of the lynx.  We eat at a pizza restaurant at the bottom of the hotel driveway, sharing a huge calzone and salad.  Another great day in Tuscany.